The comedy of disasters: delays, dysfunction, and days without showers (Part 2)

I frowned into my coffee at 7 am. Somehow, the thought that my next cup would probably be at Starbucks in the US offered little comfort in the light of all that was going on. I’d been dreaming of Starbucks and walks along Brandon Parkway (near my parents place in Tampa) for weeks, but now that it had become—most unexpectedly—a   very realistic prospect, it had lost its appeal. How could this be happening? Would he even be alive when I arrived? It all seemed so unreal. 

Within the next 30 minutes a Peace Corps car picked me up and chauffeured me to the office where I took care of some last minute formalities before heading to the airport. I couldn’t wait to get on the plane and have numerous ours to in which to be alone with my thoughts. Id had enough of the travel drama. I didn’t really have the emotional bandwidth to process so much at once.

I checked in without much hassle and headed to the gate. When I had boarded the plane and settled into my seat, however, I realized something: who was there to meet me? None other than MURPHY! I it was 40 minutes after our departure time when the announcement came. Murphy had struck again—this time in the form of mechanical malfunction in one of the wings of the plane. They spent close to 2 ½ hours fumbling around trying to identify exactly what the problem was. The contemplated switching planes but 30 minutes later scrapped that idea after having finally discovered the source of the issue by this time I am sure had formed a sizable bald spot in the area in which I’d been pulling out my hair. As we finally took of I said a quick prayer. Life in Africa has taught me that dysfunction of any and every kind—especially when it comes to vehicles—is so common it approaches the realm mathematical certainty. I was nervous about whether or not id make my connecting flight in Lagos, but more terrifying was the prospect of our plane crashing somewhere in the Congo. The way this trip was turning out up to that point made it seem like a very real possibility!

But to my relief our wheels touched down in Lagos some 7 hours later and I hustled off the plane as fast as I could…meaning I waited for what seemed like five hours waiting for the 1,000 people in front of me to inch there ways out of the rows and haul down their suitcases from over-head bins. I have never been able to figure out why it is that when it’s time to disembark people always seem to grow 10 left thumbs and move at half their normal speed. It always provokes in me a type of fury akin to the rage some people develop while in their vehicles on the highway. They always seem like normal human beings until they are behind the wheel. At any rate, I hustled inch by inch out of the plane and down to customs. After fuming in line for perhaps 20 minutes a customs officer approached and asked if there were any transit passengers. I immediately piped up. We were waaaay late but there was still a chance a faint and fading chance that I might make the connection. The officer took my passport glanced at it and asked me where I was going and what time the flight was supposed to be. Lucky for me, I’m a child of the E-Ticket age and hadn’t printed my itinerary—thus I could tell him neither exactly.  He scowled at me and handed my document off to a lady officer who was as intimidating looking as anything off of your typical Nigerian war film: She was thick; she was dark; she was 5 foot 3 inches of condensed bad-ass in her brown uniform and half-cocked beret. .. I wouldn’t have wanted to run into her in a dark alley! I confess thoughts of crumbling prison cells, torture, robbery,  and extortion did briefly enter my mind when she took my passport, but I had no choice but to follow. With my suitcase in tow we hustled through the labyrinth of construction going on in the terminal, out to the parking lot and into the next terminal. She was shouting and all but bucking people out of the way as we ran through the passage. We sped through security, drawing bewildered glances and arrived sweating and panting at the gate. The attendant seated there looked up at us, eyes still bearing the glaze of boredom and casually told us id long missed my flight.

My already sagging heart sank a few more inches. We asked if there was another flight that night I could take…the attendant smirked and said no…there’s only one flight per day that goes to the US from Lagos. Only one?! I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to believe it. 1 per day…meaning id have to wait until 10pm the next day for the next flight. I harassed various employees to find out if there was an indirect way to get there still available. By the 10 time I asked they were quite fed up and told me to accept that I wouldn’t be able to leave Lagos that night. So there I was stuck in Lagos… no money, no visa, no connections. I’d be sleeping in the airport. The only upside was that the ruckus Id caused made me a celebrity amongst the airport security guards and my pathetic plight managed to win me some friends.  (There is much to be said about those fine folk, as well as the other colorful characters I met along the way, but they shall have to be the subject for a later blog post.) Needless to say they kept me from starving and provided entertaining company in to the wee hours. At about 2am I finally stretched out on some benches pulled together and laid down feeling quite sorry for myself. Within 30 minutes I was out like a light.

It was 5:30 Thursday morning. I should no longer sleep so I got up and went to the restroom to freshen up. (Aside: I found it both bizarre and intriguing that each toilet stall came equipped with shower head and the bathroom also had a foot washing station…apparently hygiene in the lower half of the body is of utmost importance in Nigeria) I had a long day ahead. Thanks to Ken the French Canadian, Sam the scotch loving Texan, and Will the water processor builder, the hours passed quickly. Before I knew it I had in my hand a crisp, freshly printed ticket to the US. Never was I ever more glad to see that mundane strip of paper, I couldn’t get on board fast enough. As it turns out, however, it only looked like a ticket to the US when in actual fact it was a free pass for something else entirely…

The last thing I had wanted to hear was that tell-tale “Ladies and gentleman…” speech from the captain—yet AGAIN. It turned out they had over fuelled the plane and we too heavy to take off. Conveniently enough there was no defueling equipment available (“At an international airport?” You ask? Yep…but this is Africa, and when you think about it, it fits right in with a Taxi driver not having a jack.) I couldn’t believe it was really happening. Plan A was to take off all of  the luggage. That turned into plan B, which was to take off all the luggage and 40 passengers. If you ask me, they should have kicked the 40 fattest people off the plane and given them $600 voucher and an evening in a fancy hotel for their trouble. Another option would have been letting everyone disembark and taken to plane for an hour long joy ride around Nigerian airspace to burn off some fuel. Of course, no one asked me. One has to wonder why don’t they ever do what is practical and an obvious solution. But no… plan C was cancel the entire flight and put us all in a hotel. In the end I suppose it wasn’t a bad deal since my ticket turned into a free pass for a stay at a luxury hotel on the beach in Lagos. Given, under other circumstances such a thing could be considered a dream vacation (and I definitely couldn’t complain about the accommodations—in fact I quite enjoyed them…especially the breakfast spread!)….but this was THESE circumstances and all the palm trees and sunshine in the world couldn’t compensate for my desire to just get back to the US already.

The comedy of disasters: delays, dysfunction, and days without showers (Part 1)

It was already 10:30pm on Thursday evening and both my energy and patience were so eroded I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream. Being the emotionally constipated person that I am, however, I did none of the above. I just stared at the back of the seat in front of me with a glazed expression, scrutinizing the oval buttons and ridges in plastic frame of the TV monitor in an attempt to distract myself from all the emotions knotted in my chest. The captain had just come on the intercom to make the announcement. As soon as the words “ladies and gentleman…” crossed his lips in that crackling technology-mediated voice I knew what would follow would be bad news. It all seemed so surrealistic…more like something out of a film than something that was actually happening. Some people refer to it as Murphy’s Law. Who “Murphy” is and why he is associated with (or perhaps causes) series of disasters I cannot say, but one thing is certain, I now believe his law is as certain as the law of gravity: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong—especially when living in Africa.

It had all started back in my village in the Kalahari. I had packed in a hurry the night before, planning to make an emergency trip to the US. My grandfather was in the hospital and it wasn’t certain if he’d make it out again. I simply had to go. So at 7 am I hustled out to the tree that serves and the taxi stand just in time to catch the van as it was passing. I was taken aback when I saw that it was quite empty. Those of you have been following my blog know that a taxi is NEVER empty when it arrives at the stand. I should have realized at that point that Murphy was at work on this excursion of mine. The driver made a u turn and the stand and asked me where I was headed. I told him Vryburg and he waved to me to come inside. I climbed in the back feeling quite suspicious of how horrifyingly empty it was. I felt even more tense when I began driving the opposite direction of where we need to go. I asked him about it. He responded that he needed to pick up more passengers in the next village over. In the next breath he asked my for my phone number and where I lived (in the classical manner of South African males) I told him I wasn’t going to give it to him. He asked me why not, and then he asked me my name. I stifled a chuckle and the ridiculousness of it all. It was always the same sad script they don’t seem to understand that how awkward it would be to call someone whose name you don’t even know. I wasn’t in the mood for the whole spiel so I told him flatly to forget about it because there was no way I would be giving him my number or telling him where I lived. Again in classic fashion he continued to try to persuade me, I simply ignored him. I just needed to get to the capital as quickly as possible which made his advances doubly irritating. As all of this banter was going on we were driving around the village picking people up at their homes. We circled the entire village and even stopped to talk to a few of his friends before we finally got on the road. By then it was a whole hour later than our usual departure time.

After 2 hours of driving we arrived in Vryburg. It was 11am on Tuesday.  “Finally,” I thought. Now it only remained to find a taxi headed to Pretoria. With any luck id be able to be on the road within an hour. Taking the taxi would be much faster than travelling by bus I had decided, and it would be cheaper too—half the price to be exact. But as we say in the US, “you get what you pay for.” In this case what I was paying for was a rusty old trash can on wheels in worse shape even that my usual taxi out of the village. Would this thing even make it out of the lot? I had no time to lose, however, and so I said a quick prayer and got inside. By that point it was half full and I imagined it would be much longer to wait. (Everyone who lives here knows that they no taxi will leave the stand until ever single seat, thing that can function as a seat, and space that can fit even half a butt cheek is filled.) So I just had to wait. As each new passenger came the driver directed them where to sit –shuffling and redirecting them as if it were all some game of human Tetris. 1 hour became 2 and 2 hours became 3 as we just sat there like so many sardines in a can. Finally, after some 3 ½ hours of waiting we finally pulled out of the lot. I grimaced at the thought of driving for 5 hours pressed together like that. One can only sit for so long with ones shoulders at an angle or leaned forward before the strain becomes unbearable. At any rate I was so glad to finally be underway that I no longer cared about how questionable the means by which id be getting there were.

So there we were cruising along. We’d left Vryburg behind some 10 minutes before and were out on the open road when suddenly, Boom! The driver’s side seat dropped a few inches…so did my heart. We’d blown a tire. We cruised to a stop in tall grass by the side of the road and all piled out. The driver pulled out his spare. The spare was not much of a spare, however, being that it was close to bald and had a sizeable gash in its perilously thin tread…and naturally, he didn’t have a jack. After all, this is Africa. Why on earth would a taxi driver ever have need of a jack? I stood there in the tall grass staring at the spare lying on the ground while the driver and a few other passengers tried to flag down a passer-by. Ubuntu (that is, the warm-hearted concerns Africans have for one another) is apparently dead in South Africa. About 20 cars passed us before our salvation came in the form of a young Ethiopian business man. In short order we are on our way again. Each second however I prayed we’d not have another blow out on our sorry excuse for a spare.  That would be adding insult to injury. To my relief, however we stopped at an auto shop about an hour later and got a “real” tire put on. Again we all piled out and sat by the side of the road sipping on cold drink (what they call soda) and chatting a bit for the 30 minutes it took to do the repair and then it was a again time to hit the road. We crammed ourselves in, all feeling a bit more certain we’d survive the commute and eager to get it over with. Murphy, however, had other ideas about how things should continue. When the driver turned the key in the ignition, the only response was that tell-tale coughing of an engine out of power. The battery was all but dead. It took four guys pushing to get us out of the lot and a lot more pushing to get the engine to turn over. Meanwhile our Van was holding up traffic and some motorists were quite angry. Fifteen minutes later, however, we were on our way…headed due east with the setting sun roasting the back of our necks and sweating against one another in a very obnoxious way.

Every hour or so, I’d get a message from my Peace Corps supervisor asking where I was. The Peace Corps had a driver waiting to pick me up so that I wouldn’t have to walk to the hostel with my luggage in the dark, but drivers usually go home around 5pm and each delay meant he had to stay that muck longer past his time to get off work. As we approached Pretoria I called to say we’d be in within the hour. After all that had happened I was glad the end of this part of the journey was in sight….but Murphy always gets the last laugh. At a split in the road, the driver took a wrong turn. The regular passengers among us threw up their arms and hollered “You’re going the wrong way!” and “Wait, you need to turn around.” But the driver, who was a man of limited stature with an attitude to compensate, insisted it was the right way and refused to turn around, ultimately adding an additional 30-40 minutes to our trip.

When I finally did arrive I was worn out and frazzled and felt guilty for making our driver wait so long. He was very displeased but still courteous. I shared my short bread cookies with him in an attempt to ease his frustration about the unpaid overtime. After he dropped my at the Hostel I breathed a sigh of relief. I was at the point of collapsing. “I hate you Murphy!” I thought.